Many vehicle engines are built with either a standard output performance package or a high output performance package. Based upon a typical market demand, only a small percentage of the total engine production is built with the high output performance package. Often there are design differences between the standard performance package and the high performance package which complicate the assembly line production of the engine. One particular design difference is that the high performance package typically requires additional cooling for each engine piston. As a result, oil squirters have been installed in high output performance engines.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a prior art oil squirter 10 installed in a high output performance engine 12 with portions of the engine broken away to show a piston 14 in a cylinder bore 16. The oil squirter 10 is mounted to an engine block 18 spaced from the piston 14. The oil squirter 10 is designed to cool the piston 14 by directing a stream of engine oil 20 at the underside of the piston 14 when the engine 12 is running. Typically, each piston in a high output performance engine requires an oil squirter.
Although the oil squirter 10 provides the required additional piston cooling, it has several shortcomings. Foremost, to supply the oil squirter 10 with pressurized oil, an oil supply hole is drilled and tapped into an engine block oil gallery 22 during assembly of the engine 12. However, engines built with the standard output performance package do not include oil squirters and, therefore, do not utilize the oil supply holes. Capping or plugging each oil supply hole during the assembly of each high volume standard output performance engine is expensive and time consuming. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a windage tray, having an inventive oil squirting feature, to be installed in engines built with the high output performance package, thus eliminating the need for oil squirters.